Franciscan meditation

Francis of Assisi grasped something of the mystery of God - the overflowing goodness of God, and the mystery of God’s humility. Francis did not study theology. . . . He simply spent long hours in prayer, often in caves, mountains or places of solitude, places where he could distance himself from the busy everyday world.
(So let's take that idea into our first round of relaxation, as we focus on the breath, breathing in slowly, and out slowly.
Breathing in relaxation, and breathing out tension…..)

While this Franciscan path of contemplation is desperately needed in our world today as we face massive suffering and vast ecological crises, we still live, in our western culture, with an emphasis on rationality, order and mind. The one who contemplates God though knows the world to be charged with the grandeur of God. Contemplation leads to a solidarity with all creation whereby all sorrows are shared in a heart of compassionate love, all tears are gathered in a womb of mercy, all pain is healed by the balm of forgiveness. We are called to see deeply that we may love greatly. And in that great love, rejoice in the overflowing goodness of God.
(Return to the breath, and that idea of overflowing goodness.)

As Francis entered into the mystery of 'God', he discovered the humility of God, the God of humble love by meditating on and imitating the poor and humble Christ. It was the unique person of Jesus that Francis and Clare fell in love with, precisely in his incarnate and humble state, identifying with the excluded and little ones, whom Jesus calls “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40). The bias toward the edge and the bottom has always been at the heart of Franciscan mysticism, explaining its perennial identification with poverty and suffering.
Francis of Assisi’s experiences of God led him to solidarity with those who suffer, whether lepers, people in poverty, or the Crucified Christ himself.

Another Franciscan, Duns Scotus, wrote that to love as God loves is to love things in and as themselves, to love things for what they are, not for what they do for us. That’s when we really begin to love our spouses, our children, our neighbors, and others. When we free them from our agendas, then we can truly love them without concern for what they do for us, or how they make us look, or what they can get us. When we love things in themselves, we are looking out at the world with God’s eyes.

Music: Where I rest, Salt of the Sound